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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act The time of those ritzy pictures everyone likes t

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act The time of those ritzy pictures everyone likes to share was the result of protectionism. The govt saw a lot of value in standing up the airline industry and gave operators exclusivity over their routes in order to ensure their profitability while things were booting up. They could probably afford to put a lot of the fat back into the passenger experience if they didn't have to compete on price. As long as they must compete and as long as consumers mainly choose their tickets based on the first price they see, they will be heavily incentivized to trim the fat as much as possible, stuff in as many bodies as possible, and shove them through the pipeline as quickly as possible. I'm not advocating for re-regulating, especially since I definitely would not be able to afford air travel at all without the dereg. But I think the 'growth at any cost' mentality needs to be curbed here. It would be nice if the airlines could be content with merely obscene profits instead absurd profits, but the lines gotta go up and the only way to get the juice is to squeeze ever harder.

m463 3y ago
I can't help but think of the decline in phone ruggedness when Ma Bell was overruled and you could finally plug in 3rd party phones into your home ("foreign attachments")
kmlx 3y ago
> with merely obscene profits instead absurd profits i thought this was a serious comment until i read this line. their profit margins are 1.2% or $2.25/passenger. and this is after losing hundreds of billions in the preceding 3 years. show me these obscene/absurd profits.
boeingUH60 3y ago
American Airlines, the biggest US airline, reported a mere $127 million in profit on $48 billion of revenue in 2023 [1]. That’s after being in the red for the past two years and making net profit ranges of 1-5% in the years before that. There’s no “merely obscene” or “absurd” profits in the airline business. It’s probably the toughest industry out there, which is why it gears toward consolidation. As the popular saying goes, the best way to become a millionaire is to become a billionaire first and start an airline. 1 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/250572/net-income-of-us-airways/#:~:text=In%20the%20fiscal%20year%20of,beginning%20of%20the%20coronavirus%20pandemic https://www.statista.com/statistics/250572/net-income-of-us-....

m463 3y ago

I can't help but think of the decline in phone ruggedness when Ma Bell was overruled and you could finally plug in 3rd party phones into your home ("foreign attachments")

kmlx 3y ago

> with merely obscene profits instead absurd profits i thought this was a serious comment until i read this line. their profit margins are 1.2% or $2.25/passenger. and this is after losing hundreds of billions in the preceding 3 years. show me these obscene/absurd profits.

boeingUH60 3y ago

American Airlines, the biggest US airline, reported a mere $127 million in profit on $48 billion of revenue in 2023 [1]. That’s after being in the red for the past two years and making net profit ranges of 1-5% in the years before that. There’s no “merely obscene” or “absurd” profits in the airline business. It’s probably the toughest industry out there, which is why it gears toward consolidation. As the popular saying goes, the best way to become a millionaire is to become a billionaire first and start an airline. 1 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/250572/net-income-of-us-airways/#:~:text=In%20the%20fiscal%20year%20of,beginning%20of%20the%20coronavirus%20pandemic https://www.statista.com/statistics/250572/net-income-of-us-....